GREA T BRIT A IN. 267 



reckon, as a rule, upon taking full fish more or less up to 

 March. Mr. Wilcocks Field (February 25th, 1882) re- 

 marked from Plymouth that the herrings have not yet left 

 the coast, and many among them have not yet spawned. 

 It is evident that off Great Britain there are two chief 

 periods for spawning, but that at various places some 

 spawning fish may be captured at any month throughout 

 the year. The autumn breeding time would appear to be 

 the most extensive. 



It now becomes necessary to consider what do we under- 

 stand by whitebait ? Here we must first seek for the 

 origin of the term, and at the outset I am inclined to admit 

 that such appears to be lost in obscurity. If we refer to 

 Pennant's 'British Zoology/ volume the third, page 371, 

 published in 1776, we read as follows: "During the 

 month of July there appear in the Thames, near Blackwall 

 and Greenwich, innumerable multitudes of small fish, which 

 are known to the Londoners by the name of whitebait. 

 They are esteemed very delicious when fried with fine 

 flour, and occasion, during the season, a vast resort of the 

 lower order of epicures to the taverns contiguous to- the 

 places they are taken at." 



Unable to trace the origin of the term whitebait, we have 

 to investigate what has this fish been considered ? Pennant 

 states they belong neither to the shad nor the sprat, nor 

 are they the young of smelts, but bear a great similarity to 

 the bleak, to which fish he appended them, although with 

 doubt. Donovan (1808) obtained as whitebait the young 

 of the shad, and calmly expressed his opinion that Pennant 

 never saw a whitebait, or, if he did, his examples were bad, 

 or his investigations hasty and negligent, while his figure 

 conveyed no just idea of the fish. Next we have Yarrell 

 (1828), who considered that both Pennant and Donovan 



